A Bitcoin user suffered a significant financial loss exceeding $60,000 after mistakenly overpaying transaction fees while attempting to expedite a transaction using the replace-by-fee (RBF) mechanism.
The error occurred when the user, intending to increase the fee rate to 30.5 satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB) to accelerate a stuck transaction, accidentally input 305,000 sat/vB instead. This resulted in a total fee payment of 0.75 BTC, valued between $60,000 and $70,000 at the time.
The costly mistake stemmed from confusion between fee units (satoshis per byte versus total satoshis) and a failure to properly redirect change outputs during the RBF process. Consequently, leftover funds intended as change were absorbed entirely as miner fees.
RBF allows users to resend unconfirmed transactions with a higher fee to incentivize miners for faster confirmation. However, this incident highlights the risk of unintended fund loss if inputs and outputs are not handled correctly during the manual adjustment.
Industry best practices to prevent such errors include utilizing reputable wallet software with clear interfaces, thoroughly understanding fee calculation units, meticulously verifying all transaction details before broadcasting, and testing procedures with small-value transactions first.
The incident underscores the critical need for improved wallet user interfaces and enhanced user education regarding Bitcoin transaction mechanics, particularly when manually adjusting fees using features like RBF.